4th February 2011, 06:44 PM
Madweasels Wrote:It should be, of course, possible for stores containing human remains to be blessed/consecrated in the same way that chapels of rest in hospitals are.
I think this is missing the point slightly and would this mean every unit, museum, lab, amateur group store and so forth end up being consecrated? And I would certainly object to any notion of 'pagan' consecration for facilities used to house/store prehistoric remains due to the complete absence of what they actually believed in rather than what we believe they believed in (but that is another debate and thread).
The issue is the Justice Department dragging its feet. Mike Pitts was just on PM (Radio 4) explaining what the problems are and that applications for extensions to licenses just isn't enough. Just think what would have happened if we had this legislation 40 years ago? One area that would have been seriously and adversely affected would be isotope analysis. The list can go on and maybe we should actually make such as list. So here goes to start it....
Negative impact of the legislation
a) would prevent the application of new techniques on previously excavated material